All the Families of the Earth Will Be Blessed - Including Yours

Read Matthew 1:1-17

        The Savior was born a “son of Abraham” (1:1), through whom God promised to bless “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3; 22:18).  That Gentiles (non-Jewish people) should feature so prominently in a genealogy designed to establish Jesus’ royal credentials as a descendant of King David (1:1) prepares Matthew’s Jewish readers for the Messiah’s eventual commission to “make disciples of all nations” (28:19).

      Tamar (1:3) was a Canaanite woman who bore Judah two sons under scandalous circumstances (Genesis 38).  Rahab (1:5) is well-remembered as the Canaanite prostitute who hid the Israeli spies at Jericho (Joshua 2).  Ruth (1:5) was a Moabite, a member of a cursed race (Deuteronomy 23:3).  Bathsheba may have been Jewish-born, but perhaps not, since she was married to “Uriah the Hittite” (2 Samuel 11:3), at least until King David shamefully made a widow of her to cover their adultery.      

       Perhaps what strikes you about these women in Jesus’ genealogy is not their race, but the raciness of their stories (only Ruth is untouched by the disgrace of sexual sin).  But women are far from the only notable sinners in Jesus’ genealogy – Manasseh’s reign of exceptional evil-doing, for example, went on for fifty-five years (2 Kings 21:1-17), not to mention the gentlemen actually responsible for the despoiling of Tamar and Bathsheba. 

      Or perhaps you are struck by the unusual inclusion of women at all in Jesus’ genealogy.  That’s also worth noting, and must have raised the eyebrows of Matthew’s Jewish readers.

      The disenfranchised, the marginalized, the oppressed, the left-out, the compromised, the fallen, the scandal-ridden, including sinners of the most spectacular kind – none are beyond the saving mission of Jesus.   Thankfully.